NASCIO Publications

Historically, state governments have struggled to address accessibility requirements as part of IT procurements. NASCIO will address this issue in a two part series on accessibility in procurement. This is the first such brief and part II will include states in practice and adoption information for states. Download the complete brief in an accessible PDF format here.

What does it mean to be working on the right things? This determination is often difficult when considering the state as both an enterprise and a collective of individual agencies. Through interviews and formal surveys, NASCIO and Infosys Public Services gained insight from state IT leaders on the fundamental processes, mechanisms and criteria necessary to ensure that state IT is working on the right things. The resulting report will help state IT decision makers understand the key factors needed to identify the right things to do, see how they and their peer states stand against these factors and what can be done to bridge the gap.

The predicted shortage in the state information technology (IT) workforce has been discussed and debated for over a decade and states have been confronted with numerous challenges when it comes to identifying gaps in a changing IT workforce. A major concern for state CIOs continues to be the significant number of state IT employees who are eligible for retirement or have been eligible, but have postponed retirement due to the economic downturn. In spite of this, there is evidence that the economy is recovering and some states are experiencing record numbers of retirement. This report outlines the current data on the state IT workforce and focuses on innovation, best practices and recommendations.

Given today's fiscal environment, states are turning to their IT partners to provide cost-effective delivery of citizen services. This brief focuses on the best strategies for IT partners to engage with state CIOs while building successful business relationships.

The RFP process is multifaceted with a broad set of stakeholders including state CIOs, agency heads, state procurement officials, state procurement attorneys, private sector vendors, and many others. Taking this information into consideration, NASCIO has continually sought ways to encourage collaboration between CIOs, chief procurement officials and private IT sector vendors. As such, NASCIO identified the RFP process as one to which special attention must be paid.

State CIOs are managing a growing and diverse set of investments, services and collaborative arrangements. Enterprise portfolio management (EPM) is a discipline that provides the tools and best practices necessary for doing this proactively and successfully. EPM provides a view into the enterprise – not only projects, but also services, operations, programs and resources. EPM essentially turns enterprise architecture into action. EPM involves many portfolios. The first portfolio that drives the others is the portfolio of issues that identifies, scores and prioritizes the very issues we're trying to solve through projects, programs, management initiatives and operations.

On a daily basis, a number of situations may arise where a state chief information officer (CIO) and legal counsel need to work together. Procurement and contract negotiations, privacy, cybersecurity, personnel actions and litigation including e-discovery are just some of the issues for which having a good working relationship is mutually beneficial. The NASCIO Legal Advisory Committee, with contributions from some veteran state CIOs and legal counsel, came up with the list below. This practical guide is intended for newbie and seasoned legal counsel and CIOs.

One of NASCIO's guiding principles is to "promote the CIO as the technology leader who drives innovation and transformation." To advance this belief, this leadership white paper explores the various structures and relationships of the State Chief Information Officer's (CIO) role and how these differences impact the CIO's participation in government transformation and innovation. The NASCIO CIO Leadership Working Group explored these differences and caution that a "one size fits all" approach is not the objective given that there are clear reasons for these variations. We looked at how the role of the CIO might evolve given 'forces' that could impact this evolution, such as technology disrupters and innovation. We discussed these 'forces' and critical success factors with private sector CIOs to learn how they have evolved their position, authority, and responsibility to support corporate transformation. We prepared this paper as a guide for CIOs, Governors, and other state officials to learn more about the various models that exist and how those models could evolve to support the direction of the enterprise.